Homoplasy

Plants and animals that are unrelated sometimes resemble one another in astonishing detail. These similarities are the result of parallelism, convergence, and reversal, collectively termed homoplasy. The independent evolution of similar characteristics can be thought of as the converse of homology, which is the shared similarity between organisms that results from shared ancestry or a common evolutionary history. In contrast, homoplasy is the shared similarities between organisms that is not the result of shared evolutionary history. In the past, it has been thought to be an error of the scientist unable to distinguish subtly different characteristics between animals and plants. More recently, however, studies of homoplasy are recognized as new opportunities for the exploration of biodiversity. This book explores new ways to view this phenomenon.

Table of Contents:
Implications of homoplasy: explanations of homoplasy at different levels of biological organization, D.R. Brooks, homoplasy connections and disconnections - genes and species, molecules and morphology, J.J. Doyle, the relationship be-tween homoplasy and confidence in a phylogenetic tree, M.J. Sanderson and M.J. Donoghue, nonfloral homoplasy and evolutionary scenarios in living and fossil land plants, R.M. Bateman, behavioural characters and homoplasy - perception versus practice, H.C.Proctor; measures of homoplasy: measures of homoplasy, J.W. Archie, the measurement of homoplasy - a stochastic view, J.T. Chang and J. Kim; gen-eration of homoplasy: complexity and homoplasy, D.W. McShea, exaptation, adaptation, and homoplasy - evolution of ecological traits in dalechampia vines, W.S. Armbruster, patterns of homoplasy in behavioural evolution, S.A. Foster, W.A. Cresko, K.P. Johnson, M.U. Tlusty, and H.E. Willmott, ontogenetic evolution, clade diversification, and homoplasy, L. Hufford, homoplasy in angiosperm flowers, P.K. Endress; Appendices: families and genera with completely trimerous flowers; families and genera with flowers that are trimerous except for the gynoecium; families and genera with flowers that are trimerous except for the adnorecium, which is polymerous; families and genera with flowers that are trimerous except for the calyx, which is pentamerous; homoplasy and the evolutionary process - an afterword, M.J. Sanderson and L. Hufford.

Review :
"The editors are successful in their goal of demonstrating that the study of homoplasy is an important field in its own right and that it is more than just a nuisance factor in phylogenetic analyses or the opposite of homology."
COPEIA
"Researchers in the field of phylogenetic systematics will find this book extremely useful."
--Mary V. Ashley in DOODY
"This book is long overdue. Homoplasy merits far more attention that it has received to date, and most evolutionary biologists will find much in this volume that is interesting and provocative."
--THE QUATERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY
"The editors of this volue sought to establish homoplasy as a topic of interest in its own right and to identify the evolutionary processes that produce it. This is a useful book, strong on practical, methodological considerations, with several chapters that transcend observations specific to particular systems to deal with more general issues. This may be the first, but one hopes not the last, book-length treatment of this compelling topic."
--AMERICAN SCIENTIST